You can just imagine the scene in Parliament Square if Sinn Féin’s seven MPs rolled up to take their seats in the House of Commons. Police barricades, horses and every right-wing thug in the Greater London area converging on the House of Commons to physically block them from striding in, taking up their seats and voting to either stop Brexit, or to bring down the new Johnson Government.

Of course, Sinn Féin is an abstentionist party. ‘New face of Irish republicanism vows Sinn Féin will never take seats in Parliament’ ran the headline in the Daily Mirror above an interview with Mary-Lou McDonald just last month. Yet, still the call is routinely made – usually by mischievous southern rivals – to do what no Sinn Féin politician has ever done in the 114 years of the party’s existence and take up their Westminster seats at this critical hour.

Okay, fair enough, that’s not quite what Fintan O’Toole suggested in his recent Irish Times column. I don’t want to mischaracterise his position. He too recognises Sinn Féin will not rescind a core principle and there’s little point asking (“rhetorically satisfying but pointless”). However, he still observes the general rule that the Johnson Government’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity.

He suggests Sinn Féin’s MPs should collectively quit their seats, thus provoking a series of parliamentary by-elections, in order that other prominent figures from Irish nationalism (Mary McAleese and Nuala O’Loan were mentioned) could then take them up, unchallenged by pro-Remain parties (and assuming they see off any anti-Brexit candidates who aren’t in on the plan).

The new MPs (merely temporary and promising to step down once Brexit is dealt with) would then fly across to London to vote down Boris Johnson’s government and/or any attempt at driving through a hard Brexit. As Fintan put it:

“It seems a very small price to pay for the protection of the interests of so many people on both sides of the Border and the knowledge that when a historic challenge was posed, everyone who claims to have those interests at heart did all they could to meet it.”

Let’s get past the implausible sequence of events for a moment – as well as the unfeasible timeline (Johnson’s team are briefing that its already too late to stop Brexit through a confidence vote) – what would be the bigger effect?

Granted, it would be great craic for Paddy to reverse the tables and put one over on John Bull. But it overlooks the essential point about Brexit – and one that most Irish people won’t want to hear.

It’s simply this: The English people are entitled to exert their national self-determination like everyone else. They voted to leave the EU by 53-47% (slightly above the aggregated UK figure of 52-48%) and no run of election results or opinion polls since indicates a sea change in that view.

The circumstances that propelled the English electorate (85% of the UK) to vote for Brexit – complex and poorly understood in Irish public life – are still legitimate, even if many of us don’t like that.

The issue, then, should not be to ignore, overturn or usurp their decision. Instead, it falls to those other parts of the UK badly affected by this English-centric decision to take necessary ameliorative measures to detach their carriages from this English train crash.

Scotland will go for an entirely justified second tilt at independence in the next couple of years (according to a poll published today). Good luck to them; an ancient yet thoroughly modern country with enough scale and sophistication to take its place as a Member State of the European Union and do very well.

A similar solution presents itself for Northern Ireland too. The economic effects of Brexit – likely to be severe and immediate – can start to be countered by Irish unification. Clearly the south will also be badly affected by a no deal Brexit, as the Central Bank of Ireland warned the other day.

But at least EU funding, farm subsidies and access to the single market will be retained. A more dynamic southern Irish economy will recover faster from any shocks and it’s very much in the EU’s political interests to see that it does.

What is clear is there are no wheezes, fixes or panaceas at this stage of the game. No political games that will alter the fundamental reality of the decision taken by the English electorate in June 2016.

There has never been a realistic plan for ‘stopping’ Brexit, especially since pro-Europeans in British politics spent the first two years pretending it wasn’t happening.

Making its impact as less harmful as possible is the only game in town – and always has been. And given Boris Johnson’s long history of utter shamelessness (as well as his oft-repeated desire for a deal) it’s entirely likely he will pull off a U-turn in coming weeks, ensuring there is one.

The Irish and Scots have no mechanism – and no mandate – to stop the English (and Welsh) leaving the EU. They do, however, have a mechanism and mandate to stay in it themselves. That should be everyone’s focus and where the debate needs to turn.

 

Kevin Meagher is author of ‘A United Ireland: Why unification is inevitable and how it will come about’ published by Biteback.